Category: soccer

soccer

Turf questions: Not just scrapes, but cancer?

Posted on by Beau Dure

NBC’s Hannah Rappleye poured a lot of research into this piece on artificial turf, finding an alarming correlation between soccer players, particularly goalkeepers, and cancer diagnoses.

As exhaustive as NBC’s research is, it can’t really answer the question of whether artificial turf is to blame. That’s not NBC’s fault. The science just isn’t there. Most studies are in the “well, we couldn’t find a link, but more study is needed” camp. That’s somewhat comforting.

The follow-up questions aren’t just scientific but statistical. How many people have played soccer, goalkeepers in particular, on artificial turf? How many have been diagnosed with cancer? Now take that percentage and compare it to the incidence of cancer across the general population in that age range.

That’s obviously beyond my scope here. Maybe FiveThirtyEight could follow up?

One side issue for scientists to figure out — are turf fields more dangerous when they heat up and release vapors? Perhaps we’ll find yet another reason not to play on artificial turf when the air temperature is over 90 and the turf temperature is simply insane.

In the meantime, I’m going to try not to worry about the masses of rubber pellets I brought home from indoor soccer games over a few years. I don’t think I swallowed any, at least.

And then the more serious concerns: Do we worry about our kids playing on this surface? Or the pros?

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‘Enduring Spirit’ epilogue (sort of): An August snapshot

Posted on by Beau Dure

Sometime during the NWSL season, it occurred to me that people might be interested in an epilogue to Enduring Spirit, summing up the team’s successful second season. Perhaps they would be more interested in that than they were in the book on the first season. Perhaps I’d even recoup a bit more of the money I lost writing Enduring Spirit.

Circumstances have conspired against that work being completed. I was sick for a while, and a couple of injured fingers (one broken, one badly sprained) cut into my productivity on the computer keyboard. And the people involved aren’t racing to tell me interesting stories about what happened through the season.

So instead of adding an epilogue to the book and also publishing it separately for the low, low price of 99 cents, I’ve decided to empty out the notebook for anyone who’s interested. I went to a late-season practice to draw a contrast between Season 1 and Season 2, and I had a few interviews worth sharing.

The result: A snapshot of the Washington Spirit on a beautiful August day. Enjoy.

Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2014

Nearly a year since I last saw the Washington Spirit practice, some things hadn’t changed.

Mark Parsons’ voice was still the dominant sound. Lori Lindsey was no longer the captain but was the most vocal of the players on the stadium field, which was in its usual pristine shape despite a hard rain the night before. Emily Fortunato was still the voice of wit and wisdom on the sideline when she wasn’t tending to Ashlyn Harris, who was coming back from concussion symptoms and complained of “heavy legs.”

But a few things were different. Practice seemed a little more serious this time. The impish humor of Conny Pohlers was missing — teammates insisted this year’s German veteran, Kerstin Garefrekes, was also funny, but she wasn’t joking around here. The vertically challenged duo of Diana Matheson and Crystal Dunn clowned around briefly, but the players mostly kept their practice faces on.

This was an older Spirit team. Most of the youngsters had gone elsewhere. Jasmyne Spencer had a productive year with Western New York. Stephanie Ochs, newly converted to the back line, was in Houston with Tiffany McCarty and Kika Toulouse. Holly King and Lindsay Taylor were out of the league. Julia Roberts, waived by the Spirit, wound up in Seattle and got called up briefly to suit up for the Reign. A couple of more experienced players were also gone — Marisa Abegg went back into retirement and started her medical career, Conny Pohlers was back in Germany, and injury-plagued Candace Chapman wasn’t able to make the team.

The Spirit roster still included Caroline Miller, but she had suffered yet another injury setback and wasn’t at practice. Colleen Williams, injured in 2013 just as she broke into the lineup, tried to come back but was waived. She went to Sky Blue in her home state and once again suffered a major knee injury. Between Miller and Williams, the 2013 college draft was surely cursed.

Aside from top pick Dunn, who already had national team experience, Parsons had a roster of experienced pros. Undrafted rookie Bianca Sierra made the team as a hard-nosed (and foul-prone) defender, but Parsons traded her to Boston for talented, oft-controversial attacker Lisa De Vanna.

The rest of the newcomers were experienced. Garefrekes had been a German national team mainstay for years. Danesha Adams’ resume dated back to WPS. Yael Averbuch also played in WPS and was well established in Europe and in the national team pool. Niki Cross and Alex Singer had bounced between WPS and top German teams. Christine Nairn and Renae Cuellar had some success already in the NWSL. So had Veronica Perez, who was most famous for scoring the winning goal in Mexico’s upset of the USA in a World Cup qualifier in 2010. And Jordan Angeli, the WPS star who had tested her oft-injured knee in training with the Spirit in 2013, had come all the way back to get a roster spot this year.

Jodie Taylor was the breakout star. An English forward who made a name for herself in Australia, she shook off an early drought to become one of the most reliable scorers in the league.

So even with veteran attacking pest Tiffany Weimer out of action for the season, the Spirit had a serious infusion of experience. (Weimer also edits Our Game magazine, for which I’ve volunteered a few articles.)

“The quality and experience some of these players bring to the table is second to none,” said Tori Huster, one of the holdovers on the Spirit team. “You look at our roster — you look at our bench, even, in some of these games, and it’s like, ‘Wow, she’s not playing?’ There are some really good quality players on this team that I am lucky to play alongside.”

Parsons had figured out what a lot of the league’s pundits had not: This league eats young players for breakfast. The 2014 draft had a lot of hype, and most of the first-round picks had productive years. But beyond the first round, only five players were consistent starters. In Seattle, Parson’s countrymate Laura Harvey rebuilt through free agency and trades, and Parsons did the same. Leaguewide, the only team that had any success with draftees was Kansas City, where Kassey Kallman and Jenna Richmond were solid role players on a team that thrived on the connection between national team players Lauren Holiday and Amy Rodriguez. Chicago stayed in contention with Julie Johnston and Vanessa DiBernardo in key roles. Boston and Houston had several rookies in the mix, and they battled for last place.

So the youthful exuberance was dialed back a bit. This was a Spirit team less prone to fill its Twitter timelines with selfies from the road. In practice, they moved confidently through each drill.

But the biggest difference hanging in the air: This team was in playoff position.

The Spirit had given away a wondrous chance, leading 1-0 at Seattle against the league’s top team before conceding a late goal, a change of pace for a team that was used to scoring those late goals rather than giving them up. The disappointment from that missed opportunity was hanging in the air.

“We’ve done a great job when mistakes happen of learning from it, eliminating it and moving forward,” Parsons said. “Saturday at Seattle, we could’ve killed that game off and managed the game better. The other team want rhythm and intensity. We could’ve done a far better job in the final 10 to break that. I’m not talking about time-wasting, I’m talking about what can we do in the game that slows the opposition down. How do we break up their linking play? …

“I was disappointed, but we’ve got so many situations to learn from.”

Yet the Spirit controlled its own destiny in the season finale — beat Sky Blue, which harbored faint playoff hopes of its own, and Washington would make the playoffs. Even with a loss or draw, Portland and Chicago would have to win their games to knock out the Spirit. There was even a chance the Spirit could clinch in a few hours, depending on Chicago’s midweek game.

Nairn, who had spent 2013 with a non-contender in Seattle, noticed the difference. “Everything is taken a little bit more seriously. It’s a little bit more demanding.”

Huster saw a change in the late-season goals: “There is a little more on the line this year. Last year, I think we were really hungry just to get a point, even. As hungry as we might be just to get a point on this weekend to get into the playoffs — or three points, whatever it may be — also, in the back of our minds, we still have three games left. We’re really hopeful to finish out the season on a good note.”

From Parsons’ perspective, though, the two Spirit seasons had their own challenges.

“Last year, I distinctly remember training sessions — I guess you weren’t there — we got into it more than we did today because what we were working on wasn’t happening,” Parsons said. “And we actually had a heated discussion with a couple of players. Maybe you caught us on a fun day when you last come in (last year). We were focused, ready to get the job done.”

Any heated discussions this year?

“We’ve had a lot,” Parsons said. “I think you have to, otherwise you’re not moving forward. Right now, we’ve had enough struggles, we’ve had enough failure and setbacks to learn from. We’re all very aware of each other right now, in our personalities, and the group is in a great place. Yeah, we’ve had some rocky moments through the season. Nothing too serious, but whether it’s discussion on how hard we’re working, why we’re doing it, or the actual mentality in our previous session or game wasn’t right …

“I think we’re just all on a great page right now. But it’s taken a lot to get there. You have the honeymoon period of preseason — you haven’t put a team sheet out, so everyone is hunky-dory and happy, everyone is bonding well, I think we had an unbelievable preseason. The first 2-3 weeks of every season is really tough unless you’re winning every game and everyone’s getting a bit of action. You start showing your cards, and that’s where managing people and managing top pros who want to play comes in.”

And merely getting to the playoffs, which would happen if the Red Stars faltered, wasn’t enough.

“We’re chasing third (place),” Parsons said. “My mentality, and I shared this with a couple of players yesterday, is (a Chicago loss or tie) gives me a sigh of relief for a couple of seconds. But the target of third place doesn’t change. So we have to win. Because if we don’t win Saturday, we put it in Portland’s hands to go and get third place. … So our target is three points against a team (Sky Blue) that’s had our number this year.”

It wasn’t that the team had dominated opponents, save for a stunning three-goal explosion in the first half against title contender Kansas City early in the season. Instead, they had a knack for the dramatic.

  • May 17: Spirit 3-2 Flash. The Spirit equaled its win total from the previous season with a comeback from a 2-1 deficit in which Western New York made it rather chippy.
  • May 26: Spirit 3-2 Dash. Nairn won it with a stoppage-time blast to the far upper corner from 30 yards out, sending fans to Twitter to lobby for the highlight to be on SportsCenter.

http://instagram.com/p/oe2TaDp4j3/

  • July 2: Spirit 3-3 Breakers. A wild game full of controversy. In the 90th minute, former Spirit defender Bianca Sierra made contact with Jodie Taylor, who fell and earned the tying PK.
  • Aug. 2: Spirit 2-1 Red Stars. Late in the game, Ashlyn Harris made a brilliant save, leaping across the goal mouth. (She had been thoroughly checked out by the trainers after a collision early the second half, but concussion symptoms popped up later.) In the dying moments, Matheson sprinted about 20 yards to keep a ball in play. She got the the ball to De Vanna, who expertly held the ball before laying off to Averbuch. Then Averbuch ripped a shot from just outside the box to seal the win over the fellow playoff contenders.

https://twitter.com/Sarah_Gehrke/status/496419406365216769

“These rosters don’t really vary that much with talent,” Nairn said of the parity-ridden NWSL. “Sometimes, it’s the team that’s going to put the hardest tackles in, that one sprint that no one wants to make, just the tangible things you can control. You’re not always going to have the best game of your life, but you can control your hustle and your effort and all those things.”

If you were seeing this team for the first time at this practice, you might not get a full impression. Adams, buried on the bench through much of the summer and plugged in at the back line at one point, looked sharp and scored off a turnover. Dunn, a contender for Rookie of the Year, was easily dispossessed when she tried to make a move at midfield. Matheson, no longer carrying the team to the extent that she did in 2013 but still an essential part of the attack, had to laugh at herself after flubbing an easy pass. Lindsey looked and sounded like the team leader despite handing over her captaincy to Ali Krieger at the beginning of the season. Ashlyn Harris didn’t participate in the scrimmage, leaving Chantel Jones facing off against Adelaide Gay, a former Portland keeper who had spent the season with the Spirit Reserves and filled in as the team’s PR liaison when someone abruptly departed a couple of games into the year.

After scrimmaging, many players lingered on the field to work on finishing. Jones had been tagged in the summer’s viral charity event, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, and she fulfilled her end of the deal with a loud scream.

“Freeeezing,” Jones said of the ice bucket. “A lot of people, when they do it, they just pour the ice in right before, and it’s not cold. That has been stewing all training, and it was freezing.”

Huster stayed on the field a while. No, she wasn’t adding forward to the list of positions she had played in two years with the Spirit. “Gotta get some extra touches in,” she said.

The former Florida State midfielder had been shoved on to the back line on an emergency basis much of 2013 and parts of 2014. She showed well enough to win the team’s Defender of the Year honors in 2013. This year, she had emerged as a strong midfield cornerstone.

“I played mostly defensive center mid, if not a linking center mid, in college,” Huster said. “So I’m kind of used to that role. But I really hadn’t played there in two to three years. I’ve been outside back, center back and a little bit in the midfield, but not as much as I’d like. It is a little bit of a transition, but with the good players I have around me, it’s pretty easy.”

Huster also felt the team knew it still had a bit to learn.

“The ideas that Mark is giving us as a group overall definitely help us and keep us on the same page,” Huster said. “We still have some work to do there to be on the same page at playoff time.”

The last two players on the field were Adams and Angeli, who had made it back from three years in soccer limbo to get occasional playing time with the Spirit and bring her good attitude everywhere she went. Neither player had seen much time the last few weeks.

Choosing players for the starting 11 or the the traveling party was one of Parsons’ biggest challenges.

It’s tough for the staff, tough for players. When we built the squad, we talked about that, we knew about it. Players that are 26, 27, 28 that have been playing regularly in previous teams or previous leagues — most teams have 13 or 14. There’s not many that has 18, 19, 20 like us. We’ve built that as a strategy. Challenges do come. You look at teams that have almost played the same lineup every week — I’m sure they have their own struggles, but they have some players who are just excited to be on the roster, (and) that’s less challenging.

I’ve made some really tough decisions on traveling. Leaving anyone on this squad at home is probably the hardest decision every week. It’s heartbreaking, it’s tough, but it’s the part we need to get on with.

So it is a tough bench. No matter what we put out, it’s a strong bench. We’re also excited that players have continued to make an impact.

I also feel that building some consistency in the last few weeks is key, which has been really challenging for anyone that is just on the brink of getting into that starting 11. You’ve got to respect that, and you’ve got to respect that everyone wants to play and everyone wants a chance to compete throughout the week to get that opportunity.

One person Parsons admired but frequently omitted: Angeli.

She’s one of the most important people in our changing room and in our team. She got caught on the end of some very tough calls at times. If she is on the sidelines, not playing, then you hear her from the first to the 90th, you hear her before the game, you hear her at halftime, you her at the end. Incredible personality and character. We’re just privileged and very fortunate to have her with us. …

Jordan is an exceptional person. Every single week, every single session she comes out, no matter the day or the weather, with a point to make. It’s been key to keep competition high and key to keep people on their toes. We’re lucky we’ve had her this year. Last year, we missed that.

One more player who popped up in our conversation: Lori Lindsey, the erstwhile captain who was still leading:

“She’s been a leader throughout. I think two things happened. It was us trying to figure out letting competition drive selection. She’s a winner, she wanted to improve, I think she really drove on and improved.

“We challenged her to continue to be a good leader. We needed her voice. We needed to hear her. She got an opportunity again. When she is on, when she is ticking, when she is moving the ball, we are at her best. We made life very difficult with our decisions at the beginning, and she bounced back stronger.”

I had to wrap my post-practice conversation so Parsons could tend to some business. He got an important phone call, but also, De Vanna had sent word that she wanted to chat with the coach. She came up, saw me interviewing Parsons and said with a smile, “Don’t listen to him. It’s all rubbish.” Parsons smiled, too, but there was a hint of conflicts past in the exchange. De Vanna had shown a few signs of on-field discontent, to put it mildly, over her brief time with the Spirit.

The Spirit would go on to make the playoffs. But before they got there, De Vanna and Lindsey made headlines — one for being left out of the traveling party for internal reasons, another for making a graceful exit from the NWSL.

The Spirit made the playoffs and dropped a tough 2-1 game against Seattle, pushing the league’s runaway top team to the limit. Fans made sure the players got a warm welcome and thanks for the season.

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MLS, USA and Canada 2022: One vision

Posted on by Beau Dure

One vision of how professional soccer could look in eight years:

The 2022 MLS season kicked off with all 24 teams for the third straight season. The teams are divided into two conferences. Each team plays its conference rivals twice and then each team from the other conference once, for a total of 34 games.

The league is also in its third year under a new collective bargaining agreement. The 2020 edition replaced the salary “budget” (which most people called a “cap”) with a “luxury tax,” akin to what has been seen in Major League Baseball for years and was adopted by Germany’s Bundesliga in 2016. “Designated Players” still exist and are partially exempt from the salary accounting. If the team’s adjusted salary expenditures exceed $10 million, they pay into a revenue-sharing pool.

With MLS already ditching limits on free agency in the 2015 CBA, the league now operates under the same rules as the Bundesliga and several other European leagues. Mexico’s league, conversely, fell on hard times in 2017 when the broadcasting consortium carrying 12 of the 18 teams’ games broke apart.

The newer teams include SCSC Wanderers, the Southern California team that replaced Chivas USA in 2016. The New York Cosmos joined in 2017, having returned to the team’s traditional home of New Jersey by purchasing the former Red Bull Arena, now called PeleArena.

Without a doubt, the league’s biggest turnaround story was in Miami. The stadium was built near sea level and was quickly and permanently flooded by the rising Atlantic Ocean. An infusion of cash led to a clever reclamation of the land, and a desalinization plant hums quietly next to the stadium. Fans access the stadium via a colorful pontoon bridge that revitalized the rundown oceanfront. Real Salt Lake fans still tease Miami fans about borrowing the tune of their traditional song, but they respect the perseverance of fans who march to games singing, “If you believe, then you walk across the bridge …”

Miami and the NWSL benefited from the same generous sponsor — a former Stanford women’s soccer player who developed a combination vaccine for Ebola and all strains of the flu. She has set up global health nonprofits with much of her money but also bought a 50% share of Miami Mariners FC and set up a unique sponsorship endowment for the NWSL, which has 16 teams and high-rated weekly games on ESPN2. Portland Timbers/Thorns owner Merritt Paulson was so moved by her generosity that he paid to have all NWSL stadiums’ turf replaced with grass.

Back to the competitive aspects of MLS — MLS Cup is now contested solely by the winners of the East and West conferences. The other rounds of the playoffs were eliminated in 2018 as other Cup competitions took pre-eminence.

The early rounds of the U.S. Open Cup are now contested largely in the six-week break of the MLS and NASL seasons for the World Cup, Copa America or Gold Cup. Amateur and low-level professional teams play knockout games for the first three weeks, with many games broadcast as shoulder programming for the major international competitions. The NASL teams join in Week 4, then MLS teams in Week 5.

The top eight amateur teams in the Open Cup play a one-week tournament in mid-August for the revamped U.S. Amateur Cup. This is the only national amateur competition, as the PDL and NPSL — before they merged with the USASA in 2019 — realized they were cheating a lot of players out of playing time by cutting short the regular season to have national playoffs. College players are able to stay with their teams longer because the revamped fall/spring NCAA schedule starts in early September rather than late August.

Elite year-round amateur teams have joined low-level professional teams in USL regional leagues with promotion and relegation. The amateur teams are still eligible for the Amateur Cup, while the pro teams have a late-October national championship — the Peter Wilt Cup, named after the new FIFA president.

Canada, which oversaw the formation of three successful regional pro/am leagues in the late 2010s, has a similar system. U.S. women’s amateur competition is also similar.

The other important U.S. cup competition is the Disney Cup in February, drawing together the MLS Cup champion, the MLS Cup runner-up, the next-best MLS team, the NASL Soccer Bowl champion, the Peter Wilt Cup winner and the Open Cup winner. They play in three-team round-robin groups, with the winners advancing to the final and runners-up advancing to a third-place game. The top team that isn’t already qualified for the CONCACAF Champions League earns a berth in that competition.

Youth development took a major leap forward in 2018, when U.S. Soccer president Robb Heineman successfully lobbied FIFA to clarify its rules on transfer payments so that any U.S. youth club is due a transfer fee for the signing of any player. Wilt’s leadership helped pave the way for that much-needed change along with the re-awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Australia.

The Development Academy now includes women’s competition, and World Club Champion Lyon made headlines early in 2022 by paying an international-record $7 million transfer fee for Sky Blue Academy prospect Rylie Rampone. That fee helped to stabilize the finances at partner club NYCFC, which had been reeling when Manchester City’s ownership pulled back after the world’s oil ran out in 2020.

Within MLS, there is some movement toward promotion/relegation, with the biggest stumbling block being adequate compensation for those who have paid either the initial start-up costs of the league or paid expansion fees. The league is talking with its broadcast partners to pay enough to make such a system feasible and broadcast some lower-division games. But pro/rel talk also has split the NASL, which had to institute a formal salary cap after a group of oil magnates started a team in St. Louis and immediately spent twice as much on players as the rest of the league combined. That team folded when … well, again, the world ran out of oil.

So that’s one vision of soccer in the USA and Canada in 2022. If you disagree with any part of it, of course, you’re a corrupt individual with no imagination. (Inside joke.)

In any case, the comments should be fun. Have at it.

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MLS academies, the next Messi and single-entity fixation

Posted on by Beau Dure

Only in America can a discussion on developing soccer players be riddled with phrases like “corporate initiative-driven opinion,” “single-entity, closed league,” “misleading marketing machine” and “underwear modeling initiatives.”

There’s also a haughty dismissal of MLS’s pride in its academies. “Leagues (emphasis mine) do not produce players, clubs and coaches produce players.” Then writer Jon Townsend goes on to extol the virtue of Germany’s federation-driven model. So leagues don’t produce players, but federations do? I don’t understand — is MLS commissioner Don Garber running the Sounders’ U16 training sessions?

Tying single entity, not to mention the lack of pro/rel in MLS, to youth development doesn’t make a lot of sense. In practice, single entity as it currently exists in MLS is little more than a legal term. The last vestiges of the 1996 days of Sunil Gulati assigning players to teams are a salary restraint with a lot of loopholes and a cumbersome method of compensating teams with bargaining chips to ensure parity.

Let’s see how the business structure makes MLS different. Given the fact that salaries are limited but academy spending is not, wouldn’t a club be more inclined to spend money on the academies to get a competitive edge?

Youth development questions are tricky. England is now in, what, its third decade of hand-wringing over why it doesn’t produce any more Gazzas and Beckhams, much less any Charltons and Matthewses?

You’re not going to solve them all at the league level. And you’re not going to get a Messi through sheer force of will and spending. But neither does it help to sneer at the efforts — which previous first-division U.S. leagues did NOT make — to focus on youth development. Maybe we’ll at least get a few more Yedlins, Hamids and Najars.

MLS offers plenty of ammunition for critics (get the CBA done before December, and just allow outright free agency, OK?). So does U.S. youth development (let’s have five national championships!). The intersection of the two, though is generally a good thing. And let’s not pretend the league structure has any more to do with youth development than the befuddling new MLS logo. After all, clubs and coaches develop players, not leagues.

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2014 NWSL Draft: Year-end assessment

Posted on by Beau Dure

I compiled this for a couple of reasons:

1. I wanted to include in an epilogue to Enduring Spirit that I’m now abandoning, and I’m putting useful stuff I gathered on the blog instead.

2. I was seeking proof of my hypothesis that NWSL teams cannot and should not rely on immediate help from the draft, no matter how talented the draft class might be. I know that takes away some of the fun of previewing and reviewing the draft, but we might just need to take a longer-term view of it.

Feel free to flesh out some of the descriptions in the comments — I’m game for some crowd-sourcing and some discussion. Here’s the info to get you started:

First round

  1. Crystal Dunn, Washington – 21 games, 18 starts, 3 assists. Sparkplug in attack but sometimes burned defensively.
  2. Kealia Ohai, Houston – 23 games, 21 starts, 4 goals, 1 assist. Heated up toward season’s end.
  3. Julie Johnston, Chicago – 21 games, 21 starts, 2 goals, 2 assists. Former U.S. Under-20 captain was named Rookie of the Year.
  4. Vanessa DiBernardo, Chicago – 23 games, 19 starts, 1 goal, 3 assists. Had 11 shots on goal.
  5. Kassey Kallman, Kansas City – 18 games, 18 starts, 1 assist. Steady defensive presence.
  6. Maya Hayes, Sky Blue – 23 games, 13 starts, 1 goal, 1 assist.
  7. Amanda Frisbie, Seattle – Injury wiped out season.
  8. Nkem Ezurike, Boston – 11 games, 6 starts, 2 goals. Also played a little bit with Breakers Reserves.
  9. Courtney Verloo, Western New York – 1 game (1 minute); waived in late May

Second round

  1. Rafaelle Souza, Houston – 16 games, 6 starts, 1 assist.
  2. Marissa Diggs, Houston – 13 games, 11 starts, 1 goal, 1 assist.
  3. Morgan Marlborough, Kansas City – 9 games, 2 assists, 2 goals.
  4. Natasha Anasi, Boston – Never reported to Breakers; signed with IBV in Iceland.
  5. Cloee Colohan, Western New York – Did not play and seems to have retired from pro soccer.
  6. Hayley Haagsma, Sky Blue – Tore ACL in first preseason game.
  7. Jenna Richmond, Kansas City – 22 games, 20 starts, 1 goal, 4 assists.
  8. Megan Brigman, Seattle – 2 games (17 minutes).
  9. Kelsey Wys, Western New York – 10 games, 9 starts. Pressed into service in goal after injuries to Adrianna Franch and Lydia Williams.

Third round

  1. Frances Silva, Kansas City – 18 games, 5 starts, 2 goals, 1 assist.
  2. Mandy Laddish, Kansas City – 2 games (15 minutes).
  3. Jazmine Reeves, Boston – 17 games, 13 starts, 7 goals, 1 assist. Steal of the draft.
  4. Hayley Brock, Chicago – 8 games, 3 starts, 1 goal, 1 assist.
  5. Mollie Pathman, Boston – 21 games, 18 starts, 1 assist. Versatility helped.
  6. Michelle Pao, Sky Blue – Did not play. Stayed with Sky Blue’s reserve team and was called up when national team players were absent.
  7. Emily Menges, Portland – 23 games, 22 starts. Solid defender.
  8. Molly Menchel, Washington – Did not play. Former Spirit Reserve trained with French power Lyon and wound up signing with Norway’s Røa.
  9. Annie Steinlage, Western New York – Did not play. Signed with W-League’s Ottawa Fury and played 11 games.

Fourth round

  1. Jordan Jackson, Houston – 20 games, 13 starts, 2 goals, 1 assist.
  2. Shasta Fisher, Washington – Did not play. Played a few games with the WPSL’s Westside Timbers.
  3. Ellen Parker, Seattle – Did not play.
  4. Elisabeth Sullivan, Portland – 1 game (1 minute). This was the pick the Spirit traded for Tiffany Weimer.
  5. Jami Kranich, Boston – Made roster but did not play — backup keeper behind NWSL goalkeeper of the year Alyssa Naeher.
  6. Elizabeth Eddy, Sky Blue – Did not play. Went to another “blue” team — LA Blues, which beat the Spirit Reserves in the W-League final.
  7. Kim DeCesare, Boston – 1 game (9 minutes). Spent most of the season with the Breakers Reserves before moving to Eskilstuna United in Sweden.
  8. Maegan Kelly, Kansas City – Did not play. Signed in Iceland with Stjarnan.
  9. Kristen Hamilton, Western New York – Did not play.

Again — updates, suggestions, observations and promises to buy me beer and pizza go in the comments.

Thanks to dayecarter on Twitter for chasing down some of the European signees.

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Hope Solo: The backlash against the bandwagon

Posted on by Beau Dure

As the belated outrage over Hope Solo’s status on the U.S. women’s national team continues to grow, we’re seeing a lot of voices reminding us that the issue is much more complicated than it’s being presented in a lot of quarters. It’s certainly more complicated than the “if Ray Rice is suspended, why isn’t Hope Solo?” nonsense from the “men’s rights” knuckle-draggers.

This post, which will be updated (feel free to send me links), is to highlight those voices in the hopes that they’ll be part of the national conversation.

Not all of these voices are in complete agreement about how to handle the Solo situation. Some call for her suspension but have misgivings about where the discourse is headed. Some agree with my take that U.S. Soccer erred in celebrating her shutout record but think there’s no point is suspending her now. (After her trial, anything goes.) But they’re all good at bringing out the nuances in a case that really isn’t that simple:

Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic: 

It is now becoming fashionable to ignore human history and dump all manner of insupportable violence committed by athletes into the same bucket. The label on that bucket reads “Something Bad, Which We Should Punish.” It is true that what Ray Rice did was violent and wrong. It is also true that what Adrian Peterson did was violent and wrong. And it also true that what Hope Solo is alleged to have done is violent and wrong. But they are not the same specimen of violent and wrong.

Jen Doyle, The Sport Spectacle:

Fans of the USWNT will know well that Solo is facing assault charges. That story is not new. Washington Post editors might want to claim that this is “the domestic violence case that no one is talking about,” but that claim only works we ignore The Seattle Times, which, for example, has covered the story consistently, and responsibly, through their Seattle Sounders FC blog (Solo plays for Seattle Reign). The fact is that the national news media basically doesn’t give a shit about women’s sports stories unless they can be made into stories about men. Unless Solo’s case, in other words, can appear as a footnote to the Ray Rice story and (worse) absorbed into some broad popular sense that women, in general, are somehow getting away with something.

Jeff Kassouf, Equalizer Soccer: 

On Friday, Solo was suddenly “the domestic violence case no one is talking about.” People are “turning a blind eye” on the Solo case!

Except for the entirety of mainstream and niche media alike when it happened in June (including those …very … outlets writing those Friday pieces). The news on Solo’s alleged domestic violence was hardly ignored then. Every major media outlet in the country reported on it, giving it the red breaking news bar and top-of-the-headline-stack treatment similar to these NFL stories.

The cases “no one is talking about” are the 12 million people affected each year by intimate partner violence, according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

Amanda Hess, Slate:

All of the players who have been benched in the past couple of weeks are taking the heat for their league’s long-standing ignorance of domestic violence. It’s not clear that this approach—which penalizes highly visible players while letting the league off the hook—is ideal. What we do know for certain is that it’s not applicable to U.S. women’s soccer, which has no such systematic, decades-long history of ignoring the fact that certain players abuse their partners.

Kate Fagan, espnW:

What’s concerning about the dialogue around Hope Solo is this: It’s diverting us from the core issue. It feels like a distraction tactic to take the pressure off male athletes, off men in general, off the social epidemic of domestic violence.

Christine Brennan, USA TODAY:

(USOC CEO) Blackmun is not calling on U.S. Soccer to remove Solo from the women’s national team roster now. While Blackmun did not say why, it’s believed that the USOC is concerned about Solo’s right to a hearing and due process under the U.S. Amateur Sports Act while she awaits a November trial.

Stephanie Yang, The Soccer Desk:

As an additional complication, female athletes are certainly held to a much higher standard of moral behavior than male athletes. The least deviation from “appropriate” behavior for women is as or more remarkable than extreme instances of deviation by men. Look at the level of violence required to generate large-scale commentary and/or condemnation in the Ray Rice case. Look at how Floyd Mayweather is still allowed to compete and is, in fact, lauded by many. Ben Roethlisberger has been accused of sexual assault multiple times. Look at the sheer number of professional male athletes who are arrested, not just for domestic violence, and allowed to return to their teams after an insignificant period of “contrition.” Here is an article discussing arrest rates among NFL players. So I think there is false equivalence in media coverage of Hope’s situation as comparable to these other instances of DV.

Laura Taylor, Happy Go Snarky:

Editor: But we’ve got a problem. There are people out there writing rebuttal articles and blogs that are being very well-received. They’re making us look like amateurs who don’t know anything about women’s soccer and are only covering this because the Ray Rice story is huge and we want to make some tenuous connection to a famous, pretty girl who also allegedly committed the same crime. Terrence, I’d like you to write a new article about her.

Terrence: About women’s soccer, sir? But I’m the foreign affairs writer and we just bombed Syria and Iraq. Shouldn’t I focus on that?

(Feel free to add more links in the comments — again, I’ll update this post.)

 

4
soccer

Wrong time to suspend Hope Solo

Posted on by Beau Dure

One of the many peculiarities of covering women’s soccer is seeing something you’ve known about and discussed in public for a long time suddenly becoming “news” because someone with a platform suddenly noticed it.

That was the case a couple of years ago, when one writer at a major publication wrote about Lori Chalupny’s predicament of being cleared to play in pro soccer but not cleared to play for the national team. Another major writer said he had been working on the same story. Women’s soccer reporters weren’t working on it because we all knew about it and talked about it openly, and it was a little surprising to see people surprised about this.

This year, it’s Hope Solo.

We all know for Solo was arrested in June and pleaded not guilty to two counts of fourth-degree domestic violence, a gross misdemeanor, after a family fight. Solo’s 17-year-old nephew says she got an argument with him, charged him and punched him. Then, he says, she attacked his mother when she tried to intervene. Solo’s lawyer says Solo was actually the victim and is looking forward to making that case Nov. 4.

The Seattle Reign briefly benched Solo, but she played most of the rest of the season without major incident.

Then came the controversial part.

With Solo poised to break the U.S. women’s shutout record, the press kicked into gear a bit. The most notable effort: Christine Brennan, my colleague from my USA TODAY days, who wrote the following:

These are disturbing charges against one of the more famous role models in women’s sports, coming at a time when the issue of domestic violence has become a focal point for the nation after the terrible Ray Rice video and his controversial two-game suspension from the NFL.

Nonetheless, U.S. Soccer, the national governing body for the sport in the United States, decided to go ahead with its promotion of Solo this week.

What a mistake this is.

This is not the time for U.S. Soccer to be celebrating Solo and her accomplishments.

Brennan followed up, traveling down to North Carolina to see Solo’s attempt to break the record, which was also apparently some sort of game between the USA and Switzerland. But Solo didn’t break the record, and Brennan was unable to interview Solo. There are a couple of sides to the story of how Brennan and Solo didn’t chat, but it has to be said that Solo has been evading the media this season the way Obi-Wan Kenobi evaded stormtroopers in the Death Star, and the code of silence in women’s soccer is far greater than it is in the men’s game. (Brennan, of course, was abused on Twitter — fans should know by now that the louder they shout, the more likely journalists are to tune them out.)

Fast forward a few weeks. The USA played a couple of games against horribly overmatched Mexico. Solo broke the record and was honored with the captain’s armband in the next game. Coach Jill Ellis gave a lot of players a chance to get some game time in those games, but Solo played the full 180.

Then, all of a sudden, “everyone” noticed that a domestic violence suspect was playing for the U.S. national team. And with the NFL dealing with Ray Rice et al, it was time for the outrage machine to spin into motion.

Washington Post, New York Times, ESPNW … everyone started talking about the case “no one” was talking about. They didn’t seem to mind how badly it undercut their point to mention a USA TODAY column that had been written a month ago.

Some of us had misgivings for weeks. I think it was absurd to make such a big deal out of the shutout record in the first place, and making her captain was just thumbing our noses at karma.

But here’s the thing: It’s too late for the outrage.

Sure, maybe some of you just put 2 and 2 together and realized there’s a domestic violence case in women’s soccer. And your concern is being hijacked by the “men’s rights” blowhards standing up for those poor oppressed men who get suspended for punching their fiancees unconscious in a case with a clear-cut evidence.

Solo’s case isn’t Ray Rice’s. First of all, the evidence is anything but clear-cut. Sadly, we have to prepare ourselves for the possibility that we may never know what happened on the night in question. It’s two people’s word against Solo’s, and the police may or may not have enough evidence to figure out who’s telling the truth. Solo apologized on Facebook while understandably avoiding any details, which either means she’s sorry for something or was simply doing what her legal and PR folks wanted.

Her case is also much more complex. It’s difficult to imagine that Solo was just sitting quietly in her relatives’ house and was suddenly attacked by two people, but was she provoked? Whose words led to whose attack? Is anyone in the house blameless? (Even in the nephew’s account to police, he says he insulted Solo and her late father. That’s provocative in every sense.)

There’s really no case as yet to deny Solo her profession. I don’t recall any people insisting that she couldn’t play for the Reign. The Washington Post‘s Cindy Boren, who started the Solo outrage bandwagon on Friday but was well aware of the case in June. (If she called for the Reign to bench Solo, my apologies — I couldn’t find it.)

Was it proper for U.S. Soccer to honor Solo while a domestic violence case hung over her head? Probably not. And it wasn’t really necessary to play her at all in those friendlies, much less play her the whole time.

But now? Sorry, but that ship sailed.

You simply can’t suspend Hope Solo for Women’s World Cup qualifiers just because a few journalists suddenly saw a disconnect between her treatment and Ray Rice’s. Maybe you can do it if TMZ suddenly comes up with video from the house where Solo and her relatives had a disagreement. Otherwise, no.

The facts haven’t changed. You can’t go back and make Solo hand back the captain’s armband for her team’s ritual destruction of Mexico. It’s not OK for her to play for three months and then suddenly not play her just because a column went viral.

Algarve Cup next spring? We’ll see. For now? She plays.

Update: Here’s a statement from U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati: “U.S. Soccer takes the issue of domestic violence very seriously.  From the beginning, we considered the information available and have taken a deliberate and thoughtful approach regarding Hope Solo’s status with the National Team. Based on that information, U.S. Soccer stands by our decision to allow her to participate with the team as the legal process unfolds. If new information becomes available we will carefully consider it.”

I’d still like someone to ask Jill Ellis why it was a good idea to make a fuss over the shutout record, which is just a sign that coaches tend to leave her in the full 90 in the WNT’s many blowouts, and make her captain. Keith Olbermann just pounced on that like sportswriters pouncing on a buffet.

13
soccer

Top football prospect / unknown soccer player chooses soccer

Posted on by Beau Dure

Drake Davis is a sudden celebrity within the soccer Twittersphere. The high school junior and four-star football recruit with scholarship offers from major programs like Alabama and Florida State apparently wants to play soccer instead.

So is this the Day of Much Rejoicing, in which the USA gets a big-time soccer player to give up a football career for soccer stardom? Top Drawer Soccer’s J.R. Eskilson has the reality check:

Davis is a mystery in college soccer recruiting. There is hardly any mention of him from the prep scene.

I’m glad TDS couldn’t find much on him, because I was beginning to think there was something wrong with me.

And now that Davis has left his Louisiana home and transferred to Fork Union Military Academy in rural Virginia, what sort of club soccer can he play?

So in the era of Development Academy and other ultraserious clubs accounting for the bulk of college prospects, can a great athlete (I think we can assume that from his football credentials) make it in soccer without such developmental advantages? Will he get a full scholarship offer from the limited money college soccer programs can spread out among recruits?

It’s hard to see this as any sort of tipping point for U.S. national programs. If you’re nowhere to be seen in the national scene as a junior, the odds of being the next Oguchi Onyewu (Deadspin says Altidore, but he’s listed as a “striker/sweeper,” and there’s more demand for players on the backline) are quite small.

But we can dream, right?

0
soccer, sports culture

Women’s soccer hazing injury sparks suit against Clemson coaches

Posted on by Beau Dure

Siri Mullinix is a distinguished women’s soccer alum — starting goalkeeper for the national team while Briana Scurry struggled, terrific player in the WUSA. Eddie Radwanski has a lower profile, but he’s fondly remembered by those of us who saw him play professionally. He had the misfortune of having his peak years fall in between the NASL’s demise and MLS’s launch, so he carved out a career playing indoor and in the USISL/A-League.

And so the natural first reaction upon seeing that Radwanski, Mullinix and many others at Clemson are being sued for a 2011 hazing incident is along the lines of “Say it ain’t so.”

The lawsuit was filed last month but had not yet hit the local news organizations until today, when a colorful site called FITSNews offered up the lawsuit document itself in PDF form. The Greenville News has now published an early story that doesn’t add many details, but they are trying to reach attorneys.

The first few pages aren’t particularly damning. Plaintiff Haley Hunt claims Radwanski, who took over as Clemson coach after she signed with the program, tried to dissuade her from coming to Clemson and made fun of her for being a good student and a member of the Christian group Young Life.

Then comes the hazing incident, which sounds pretty typical at first: The upperclassmen (all named as defendants) dragged freshman players out of their dorm rooms and tossed them into cars. The freshmen are told to perform “humiliating and demeaning acts” that aren’t further described, then taken to the Tigers’ stadium to run blindfolded and do other “demeaning acts and calisthenics.”

Nothing ridiculous so far, right? But then we get to paragraph 51:

Ms. Hunt complied with the orders to run faster. Unaware of where she was running because of the blindfold, Ms. Hunt veered away from the field and sprinted directly – face first – into a brick wall. The momentum of Ms. Hunt’s collision with the brick wall threw her body backwards, causing her to smash into a nearby table and fall to the ground. The players heard Ms. Hunt scream and observed her clench her bloody face. One player described the sound of Ms. Hunt hitting the brick wall as “metal hitting metal.” The impact with the brick wall caused Ms. Hunt to sustain serious injuries to her brain, head, face, and hands. Ms. Hunt was knocked unconscious and had to be physically assisted by the other players.

Horrifying. And now it gets worse:

A few players took Ms. Hunt to the locker room, where they called the Clemson Coach Defendants. Mullinix arrived on the scene and called Michelle Bensmen, an athletic trainer for the Team. Some of the players expressed their opinions that an ambulance was necessary; however, Mullinix instructed them not to tell anyone what had happened. Ms. Hunt was not taken to a hospital. Instead, she was examined by Bensman, who applied a butterfly bandage to her face and sent her to her dorm room without medical attention or any supervision from the Team staff

Bensmen/Bensman (lawyers can’t spell — “Radwanski” is misspelled on at least one occasion) is not a defendant. According to the suit timeline, Hunt later calls her parents, thinking she needs immediate medical attention. (This all takes place in August, so Hunt may not have had a lot of dormmates and friends at this point.) Her parents call “one or more” or the coaches, and Mullinix goes to check on her and eventually stay with her that night. Then Hunt gets treatment from the team doctors, a neurologist and a plastic surgeon.

At this point, we’re talking about a delay in medical treatment that deserves some follow-up questions. But nothing worse.

Until paragraph 62:

Immediately following the Incident and prior to any investigation into the Incident, the Clemson Coach Defendants called a Team meeting and implored the Team that they must not tell anyone about what happened. Specifically, Radwanski told the players: “if you care about our jobs and our Team, then you will not tell anyone about this. We cannot have anybody finding out about this.”

Now comes a curious part — the team doctors cleared Hunt to play, though she was still in pain and having difficulty reading. Again, doctors and trainers are not named as defendants. If the coaches were following medical advice by letting her play, would the burden here fall on the doctors?

But the focus shifts back to Radwanski.

Following the Incident, Radwanski ignored Ms. Hunt’s serious injuries and continued to belittle Ms. Hunt for her academic achievements and involvement with Young Life. In fact, Radwanski was so reckless with Ms. Hunt’s safety that on one occasion he ordered her to climb a soccer goal to untangle the net, which resulted in the goal tipping over and nearly crushing Ms. Hunt under its weight. Radwanski made jokes about this and the other occasions in which he forced Ms. Hunt to perform dangerous, demeaning tasks.

Hunt’s family contacted the Clemson athletic department, which investigated but decided not to penalize anyone.

Enter the Clemson Office of Community and Ethical Standards for a separate investigation. This all happened quickly: The incident was the evening of Aug. 18; the OCES took a statement Aug. 31. The OCES found that the team had violated several university regulations on “harm to person, hazing, and violations of student organizational conduct.” (Wouldn’t the first one trump the next two?) Players had to go through a workshop and give a PowerPoint presentation on what they had learned.

For a couple of years, Hunt remained with the program. She redshirted in 2011, then played 15 games in 2012, racking up academic honors. She played a couple of games in 2013, but according to the suit, her symptoms got worse, and a neurologist told her to stop playing. She was honored in April 2014 with the Bill D’Andrea Tiger Paw Award for “outstanding commitment and selflessness within the team culture,” sharing that award with Hailey Karg. At the same banquet, Vanessa Laxgang won MVP honors and Morgan Hert took the team leadership award.

Laxgang, Karg and Hert are now co-defendants.

The suit, filed Aug. 15, does not mention a specific dollar amount of compensation. “Plaintiff prays for Judgment against the Defendants individually, jointly, and severally for all actual damages, for an appropriate amount in punitive damages in an amount to be determined by the jury at the trial of this action, those attorneys’ fees and costs incurred by this action, and for such other further relief as the court deems just and proper.”

Could the case be resolved out of court? In the Pickens County court records, the case includes an action for “ADR/Alternative Dispute Resolution (Workflow)” with a start date of March 13, 2015.

(Will update if new info arises in the next couple of days)

4
mind games, mma, olympic sports, soccer

I’m back – what’d I miss?

Posted on by Beau Dure

My hand is out of a splint after three weeks, though my typing speed is still diminished by a bit of tape on my two still-aching fingers. I may need to put my goalkeeping career on hold for a while.

I’m also relatively not sick. I have no idea how I’ve had waves of sinus and throat problems through the most mild summer of my lifetime, but a doctor has assured me she’ll figure it out. I got back from vacation to find Northern Virginia had become a sauna to start September, and after leading a couple of youth soccer practices in Venusian conditions last night and walking a couple of miles this morning, I actually feel better. Go figure.

Enough complaining. I’m back, and it’s time to give a quick update on the blog, my writing priorities over the next few months, and what happened in the sports world while I was healing.

The blog: Expect more links and fewer 1,000-word pieces. I want to keep sharing Olympic sports news, but I’m going to do that more efficiently. No more Monday Myriad (in part because my youth soccer practices are on Mondays), so this will be the last “roundup” post for a while. My analysis will more commonly be on …

The podcast: Hoping to do another one this week, depending on my guest’s schedule.

Medal projections: By next year, I hope Olympic sports news will be in the context of my medal projections. I’ll be working on that, along with …

Enduring Spirit epilogue: The tentative plan is to re-release the book (electronically only) with the epilogue added. I’ll also release the epilogue separately at a low, low price, so if you already bought the book, you won’t be shelling out another six bucks. I’m going to do a few postseason interviews, so don’t expect this right away.

Single-Digit Soccer: This project keeps gathering momentum. I’m planning to speak and gather input at the NSCAA convention in January, and I hope to finish it by next summer.

Other than that, I’ll still be writing at OZY, a site you should check out even if you never read anything I write. And you may still see an MMA book I finished a while back.

—

So what happened while I was out? In no particular order:

Badminton World Championships: South Korea wins men’s doubles, China won three other events, and the women’s singles went to … Spain? First time for everything, and this is a terrific photo:

Judo World Championships: Olympic champion Kayla Harrison was the only U.S. medalist, taking bronze.

Rowing World Championships: Britain won 10 medals, New Zealand won nine, Australia and Germany eight each, and the USA won seven. The World Championships include a lot of non-Olympic events, so don’t use this for medal projections. These championships included some para-rowing events, which accounted for one U.S. medal. The sole U.S. gold went to, as always, the mighty women’s eight.

World Equestrian Games: The sole U.S. medals so far are in the non-Olympic discipline of reining. Britain, Germany and the Netherlands are cleaning up. Olympic quota spots (earned by the country, not the athlete) are available in dressage, eventing and show jumping.

Also, Ollie Williams (the man behind Frontier Sports) looks at the Olympic prospects of horseball. Yes, horseball. They compare it to a mix of rugby and basketball, but I think it’s a mix of polo and quidditch.

Triathlon, World Series grand final: Gwen Jorgensen didn’t need a great finish to clinch the world championship. She did it anyway. Too early to declare her athlete of the year?

Swimming, Pan-Pacific Games: Phelps, Ledecky and company have it easy compared to Haley Anderson, who won open-water gold after a jellyfish sting, a race postponement and a race relocation. 

Track and field, Diamond League finals: Half of the events wrapped for the season at the Weltklasse Zurich over the weekend; the rest finish up Friday in Brussels. Check the Monday Morning Run for a recap that includes fellow Dukie Shannon Rowbury diving along with U.S. teammate Jenny Simpson as the latter took the women’s 1,500 title in style.

Today’s Frontier Sports wrap has a couple of track and field links (along with helpful links on badminton and much more), including “the often-told, never-dull tale of how (Brianne Theisen-Eaton) almost impaled (Ashton Eaton) with a javelin.”

Overall Diamond League winners include Simpson, Michael Tinsley (USA, 400 hurdles), Christian Taylor (USA, triple jump, took title away from teammate Will Claye at final), Lashawn Merritt (USA, 400 meters, Kirani James wasn’t at the final), Reese Hoffa (USA, shot put), Veronica Campbell-Brown (Jamaica, 100), Dawn Harper-Nelson (USA, 100 hurdles — Americans won every Diamond League race), Tiana Bartoletta (USA, long jump) and Valerie Evans (New Zealand, shot put, swept).

Women’s soccer, NWSL final: I got back from vacation to see this, and I’m glad I did. It was a compelling final, and while Seattle would’ve been a worthy champion in every sense, Kansas City deserved it. The Lauren Holiday-to-Amy Rodriguez combo is as potent as anything you’ll see in soccer.

Kansas City now holds the top-division U.S./Canada titles in men’s soccer (Sporting KC, MLS), women’s soccer (FCKC), and men’s indoor soccer (Missouri Comets, coached by FCKC’s Vlatko Andonovski). The latter won the last MISL title before most of that league leapt to the MASL.

The league also announced it would play a full schedule next summer with a break for the World Cup, which means international players will miss a considerable number of games. The big worry: The season will spill into September, bad news for those counting on international loans or fall coaching jobs to supplement the league’s small paychecks. But the league didn’t have a lot of good options, and now they’re poised to ride a World Cup wave if one materializes again.

Basketball World Cup: Senegal over Croatia is the big upset so far, while France, Brazil and Serbia have created a logjam for second behind Spain in Group A. The USA is cruising through an easy group.

Men’s volleyball World Championships: Many people are watching.

https://twitter.com/OllieW/status/505752806159319040

The USA won a thrilling five-setter and lost an epic to Iran in early group play.

Modern pentathlon World Championships: Underway with relays.

MMA: The UFC 177 pay-per-view card had already been hit by a rash of injuries. Then one of the UFC’s most heralded recent signings, Olympic wrestling gold medalist Henry Cejudo, had a “medical issue” while trying to make weight. Then former bantamweight champion Renan Barao, set for a rematch against new champ T.J. Dillashaw, also couldn’t make weight. Joe Soto got the Seth Petruzelli-style bump from the undercard to the main event. Unlike Petruzelli against Kimbo Slice, Soto couldn’t take advantage of the opportunity.

So the most noteworthy things about the card, apart from Cejudo and Barao’s weight-cutting issues, were:

1. Bethe Correia taking out another of Ronda Rousey’s buddies, veteran Shayna Baszler. Now Rousey wants a piece of Correia, who’ll be happy to oblige.

2. Dana White launching an unholy rip of the media. Some days, I miss covering this sport — this would’ve been fun.

Overseas in ONE FC — I’m absolutely biased toward Kamal Shalorus, who works in our wonderful local dojo and is as nice as he could be. Glad to see him get a title shot, but Shinya Aoki was always going to be a tough matchup, and Aoki indeed kept the belt.

Chess: World champ Magnus Carlsen and top U.S. player Hikaru Nakamura are at the Sinquefield Cup, but Italy’s Fabiano Caruana has left them in the dust, beating Carlsen, Nakamura and the other three to go a perfect 5-for-5 halfway through the double round-robin.

And we’re a month away from Millionaire Chess. Ignore the monetary losses and enjoy.

Cycling: Vuelta a Espana in brief — Nairo Quintana fell, Alberto Contador took the lead.

Video games: A terrific glitch in Madden ’15 — a 14-inch-tall linebacker:

Coming up: Bloody Elbow is looking at the upcoming wrestling World Championships.

Glad to be back!

1